Reising to Uzi Magazine Conversion Magwell - a fun project I completed

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***PAT PENDING***

Hi everyone, I thought some of you would enjoy hearing about a recent project I have finally completed that I started earlier in the year with just a concept. Like many that are familiar with the Reising family of firearms (M50, M55, and M60) you are probably aware that one of the BIGGEST complaints is magazine availability - there just aren't a lot of magazines around. This problem planted a seed that turned from just a concept in my head to an actual product (that works!). I wanted something that would solve the issues of trying to find some original magazines (good luck, and not to mention the price) or trying to jerry-rig a modern magazine to fit in the original magwell and hoping that it will function reliably. I present to you - my Reising to Uzi magazine Conversion Magwell.

This magwell is CNC machined from a solid piece of steel and later hardened for superior durability. I set out with the goal of creating a magwell that will not only run (and run and run) but will also utilize modern machining and heat treating processes to make a product that will last - compare this to the nearly 80 year old original H&R magwells that are just blued steel or parkerized. While comparing, you will see that the magazine release is also much improved over the original factory method of releasing a magazine. Simply press the button with your left thumb and pull out the magazine - as it should be. This is especially true on the earlier Reisings where you had to pull back the magazine release lever and then pull down the magazine.

With the issue of magazine availability (and parts for that matter) at the forefront of this project, I carefully considered what magazines I wanted to make as the foundation of this project. I settled on newly manufactured .45 Uzi magazines from ProMag. From all of my testing I have not had a single malfunction induced from the magazines - and I tested quite a few. Not to mention that ProMag also offers a lifetime warranty on each magazine! Once this magwell is installed, it is essentially "Plug-and-Play" - you can just insert a standard .45acp Uzi magazine without modification and you're ready to go. As you can see the advantages over the original H&R magazines that are almost all 80+ years old is something significant to consider. Aside from that, the parts used in the magwell assembly themselves are widely available if someone wanted to pick up some replacements (it uses standard military issue Uzi parts; mag release button, mag release button pin, mag release button spring, and 2 6/32 stainless set screws you could probably find at any hardware store). Really any original Reising replacement parts are difficult to come by so again this is a significant improvement for anyone that owns a Reising. Again, with wanting to design a durable magwell, I also increased the thickness on the portion that contacts the bottom of the action bar itself. With this, I have also redesigned the taper pins that connect the magwell to the action in the instance that I had to fit the pins to the specific action (ALL Reisings vary slightly in tolerances so this was another hurdle that I had to overcome). On that note;Thank you to all of the members here that provided me with dimensional feedback from their own Reisings!!! The pins that attach the magwell to the action are also precision CNC machined and made out of 300 series stainless. All together, this magwell is about 3x the weight of the original factory magwell (~13.5oz vs ~4.7oz), the added weight under the action does add to enhanced recoil mitigation which is another positive in itself.

Here is a video of it being demonstrated (sorry it's just semi - my range doesn't allow for FA fire)

From all of my testing I have NOT HAD A SINGLE MALFUNCTION! That includes with the action feeding or extracting and with the actual magazines themselves. Other Reising owners that have used these have reported similar results back to me (once tuned to their specific gun). And in some cases even make the gun run MORE reliably.

I do want to reiterate that there may be some minor fitting involved to get the magwell tuned to your specific gun. The most common issue I am seeing so far seems to be with the newer ProMag Uzi magazines having feedlips that are not as wide as the older magazines that they produced. This is an easy fix that only takes a minute to slightly bend them outwards so they are wider, this lets the bolt strip off the round easier to feed. Once this is done performance should be flawless. I recommend running some of the dummy rounds to make sure the magwell is compatible with your specific action before altering your stock. I will try to update this paragraph with any potential issues as I gather feedback from other users. If you have any questions or are interested in learning more about these magwells, my inbox is open.

Thanks for looking and I hope you enjoyed seeing my project - I spent a lot of time bringing it to reality. Stay tuned, I plan on continuing to develop and produce other exciting upgrades for the Reising in the future.

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Exciting. Great to see some aftermarket support for this under appreciated firearm (IMHO).... are you making these available for sale?

I agree! And yes, I am just unfamiliar what the process is to be able to make a formal for sale post on this forum (do I need a vendor account?).
 

Garrett

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The magwell arrived yesterday. Installation was straightforward. It's a tight fit going through the opening in the stock, but I didn't have to do any sanding. There was just enough space for it to slide through.

The Promags fit snug but not overly tight in the magwell. I found IMI mags will not fit, though. They are just a bit wider than the Promags. I've been emailing with Bandanabandit1 about it, in case he does a version 2.0. But I don't think people are going to go buy a pile of low-capacity 16-round IMI mags for this. For what those cost, a person would be better off to by standard Reising mags.

I put around 200 rounds through the new setup today, using four different mags. Three were new, and one has been used successfully in the Reising previously, using a sleeve. I found the old mag and one of the new mags ran well. The other two mags wouldn't feed at all. It looks like the feed lips aren't releasing the cartridge when it needs to pop up to go the rest of the way into the chamber. I should be able to adjust the feed lips and get them running. Seems like I had to do this with most of my GI and Christie Reising mags. So nothing new.
 

Garrett

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So playing with mags this evening, it seems my older mags (including a couple that are still new in the bag) have slightly wider feed lip spacing at the front of the mag.

I was getting failures at the range with the newer mags where the rear of the cartridge wasn't getting released from the mag, and I'd get a nose-up failure, which looked something like this (yes, my dummy rounds have blue marker on them):

DSf1NRmh.jpg


I just worked over all four mags and here's what I did.
  1. First, remove the spring & follower and wipe off all the grease inside and out. These things come slathered with grease.
  2. Measure the distance between feed lips at the front-most point. The new mags were measuring pretty consistently between 0.445" and 0.450". My older mags measured 0.455" here. That appears to be all it takes.
  3. L9CR51Hh.jpg
  4. Using a pair of needle nose pliers, I bent the front corner of each feed lip out just a bit. Be careful here, it doesn't take much. Like this:
  5. tF93hqeh.jpg
  6. You can see the line where I bent the front of the feed lip. When I was done, they measured between 0.470" and 0.475".
  7. 1eQpo9uh.jpg
  8. Reassemble and load those things up.
I was able to reproduce the failures I was getting at the range by hand-cycling dummy rounds at home. Once I made these mag adjustments, I was able to hand cycle round through multiple times with no failures. I'll try to get out to the range tomorrow and get some live fire in.
 

Garrett

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So here's an interesting follow-up. The Uzi mag has longer feed lips than the factory Reising mags. I had just happened to adjust the Uzi feed lips at the point where the Reising feed lips stop. This will probably be a good guide for those wanting to adjust your mags.

u4kgm48.jpg
 

My 1943 wlc

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Hi all I'm Canadian with a dewated Canadian issued reising no mag if I can buy just a sleeve no mag I have a uzi mag for my display , the sleeve can be poor fitting my phone number is 1 778-212-9957
 

My 1943 wlc

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Bummer nothing goes North so nothing goes south , I have a 1876 Winchester in 45-60 made in 1880 with three factory upgrades it's going to be a bad day when I take a cutting torch and stick welder to it and hang it on the wall I guess the only people that win are the anti gun people
 

smec_289

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tomk

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Installed the kit the other day. No problems getting it installed. Snug going in to my wood stock, but I did not need to force anything or sand. I reused the existing magwell retaining pins for my install.

I just got home from the range. I took the new Uzi mags to the range along with the tutorial posted above on how to tweak the Uzi mag feed lips (if needed). When I loaded a round it sat in a horizontal orientation to the bolt travel. Feed lips needed "adjusted". With a pair of needle nose pliers, i just barely opened up (bent outward) the very edge of the tip of each side of the feed lips. It literally took maybe 2 minutes going slow to make sure not to do something wrong. Easy. The loaded round now sat nose up from the horizontal - maybe 20 degrees (?).

Ok, now it was time to try it out. Cutting to the chase - it worked flawlessly. Singles, bursts, long mag dumps all worked just fine. I was shooting steel Tula brand 45.

I could not be more pleased. Thanks for making this happen. Great job!!
 

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